WHEN African-Americans go to the polls next week, they are likely to support Barack Obama at a level approaching the 95 percent share of the black vote he received in 2008. As well they should, given the symbolic exceptionalism of his presidency and the modern Republican Party’s utter disregard for economic justice, civil rights and the social safety net.

But for those who had seen in President Obama’s election the culmination of four centuries of black hopes and aspirations and the realization of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a “beloved community,” the last four years must be reckoned a disappointment. Whether it ends in 2013 or 2017, the Obama presidency has already marked the decline, rather than the pinnacle, of a political vision centered on challenging racial inequality. The tragedy is that black elites — from intellectuals and civil rights leaders to politicians and clergy members — have acquiesced to this decline, seeing it as the necessary price for the pride and satisfaction of having a black family in the White House.

These are not easy words to write. Mr. Obama’s expansion of health insurance coverage was the most significant social legislation since the Great Society, his stimulus package blunted much of the devastation of the Great Recession, and the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul added major new protections for consumers. His politics would seem to vindicate the position of civil rights-era leaders like Bayard Rustin, who argued that blacks should form coalitions with other Democratic constituencies in support of universal, race-neutral policies — in opposition to activists like Malcolm X, who distrusted party politics and believed that blacks would be better positioned to advance their interests as an independent voting bloc, beholden to neither party.

But the triumph of “post-racial” Democratic politics has not been a triumph for African-Americans in the aggregate. It has failed to arrest the growing chasm of income and wealth inequality; to improve prospects for social and economic mobility; to halt the re-segregation of public schools and narrow the black-white achievement gap; and to prevent the Supreme Court from eroding the last vestiges of affirmative action. The once unimaginable successes of black diplomats like Colin L. Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Susan E. Rice and of black chief executives like Ursula M. Burns, Kenneth I. Chenault and Roger W. Ferguson Jr. cannot distract us from facts like these: 28 percent of African-Americans, and 37 percent of black children, are poor (compared with 10 percent of whites and 13 percent of white children); 13 percent of blacks are unemployed (compared with 7 percent of whites); more than 900,000 black men are in prison; blacks experienced a sharper drop in income since 2007 than any other racial group; black household wealth, which had been disproportionately concentrated in housing, has hit its lowest level in decades; blacks accounted, in 2009, for 44 percent of new H.I.V. infections.

Mr. Obama cannot, of course, be blamed for any of these facts. It’s no secret that Republican obstruction has limited his options at every turn. But it’s disturbing that so few black elites have aggressively advocated for those whom the legal scholar Derrick A. Bell called the “faces at the bottom of the well.”

The prophetic tradition of speaking truth to power, regardless of political winds or social pressures, has a long history. Ida B. Wells risked her life to publicize the atrocity of lynching; W. E. B. Du Bois linked the struggle against racial injustice to anticolonial movements around the world; Cornel West continues to warn of the “giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism” that King identified a year before his death.

But that prophetic tradition is on the wane. Changes in black religious practice have played a role. Great preachers of social justice and liberation theology, like Gardner C. Taylor, Samuel DeWitt Proctor, John Hurst Adams, Wyatt Tee Walker and Joseph E. Lowery, have retired or passed away. Taking their place are megachurch preachers of a “gospel of prosperity” — like Creflo A. Dollar Jr., T. D. Jakes, Eddie L. Long and Frederick K. C. Price — who emphasize individual enrichment rather than collective uplift. “There’s more facing us than social justice,” Bishop Jakes has said. “There’s personal responsibility.”

Mr. Obama hasn’t embraced this new gospel, but as a candidate he did invoke the politics of respectability once associated with Booker T. Washington. He urged blacks to exhibit the “discipline and fortitude” of their forebears. He lamented that “too many fathers are M.I.A.” He chided some parents for “feeding our children junk all day long, giving them no exercise.” He distanced himself from his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose incendiary remarks about racism’s legacy caused a maelstrom.

But as president, Mr. Obama has had little to say on concerns specific to blacks. His State of the Union address in 2011 was the first by any president since 1948 to not mention poverty or the poor. The political scientist Daniel Q. Gillion found that Mr. Obama, in his first two years in office, talked about race less than any Democratic president had since 1961. From racial profiling to mass incarceration to affirmative action, his comments have been sparse and halting.

Early in his presidency, Mr. Obama weighed in after the prominent black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass. The president said the police had “acted stupidly,” was criticized for rushing to judgment, and was mocked when he invited Dr. Gates and the arresting officer to chat over beers at the White House. It wasn’t until earlier this year that Mr. Obama spoke as forcefully on a civil rights matter — the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Florida — saying, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

INSTEAD of urging Mr. Obama to be more outspoken on black issues, black elites parrot campaign talking points. They dutifully praise important but minor accomplishments — the settlement of a longstanding class-action lawsuit by black farmers; increased funds for black colleges; the reduction (but not elimination) of the disparities in sentences for possession of crack and powder cocaine — while setting aside their critical acumen.

For some, criticism of Mr. Obama is disloyal. “Stick together, black people,” the radio host Tom Joyner has warned. (Another talk show host, Tavis Smiley, joined Dr. West on a “poverty tour” last year, but has been less critical of the president than Dr. West has.)

It wasn’t always so. Though Bill Clinton was wildly popular among blacks, black intellectuals fiercely debated affirmative action, mass incarceration, welfare reform and racial reconciliation during his presidency. In 2001, the Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree called the surge in the inmate population “shocking and regrettable” and found it “shameful” that Mr. Clinton “didn’t come out and take a more positive and symbolic approach to the issue of reparations for slavery.” But Mr. Ogletree, a mentor of Mr. Obama’s, now finds “puzzling the idea that a president who happens to be black has to focus on black issues.”

Melissa V. Harris-Perry, a political scientist at Tulane who hosts a talk show for MSNBC, warned in 2005 that African-Americans “who felt most warmly toward Clinton and most trusting of his party’s commitment to African-Americans” were in danger of underestimating “the continued economic inequality of African-Americans relative to whites.” But she has become all but an apologist for Mr. Obama. “No matter what policies he pursues, the president’s racialized embodiment stands as a symbol of triumphant black achievement,” she wrote in The Nation this month.

Black politicians, too, have held their fire. “With 14 percent unemployment if we had a white president we’d be marching around the White House,” Representative Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told The Root last month. “The president knows we are going to act in deference to him in a way we wouldn’t to someone white.”

Some of the reticence stems from fear. “If we go after the president too hard, you’re going after us,” Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, told a largely black audience in Detroit last year.

But caution explains only so much. Representative John Lewis of Georgia, one of King’s last living disciples, has not used his moral stature to criticize the president’s silence about the poor. Neither have leaders of the biggest civil rights organizations, like Benjamin Todd Jealous of the N.A.A.C.P., Marc H. Morial of the National Urban League or Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, whether because of emotional allegiance or pragmatic accommodation.

The two black governors elected since Reconstruction — L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia and Deval L. Patrick of Massachusetts — have also de-emphasized race. So, too, have the new cadre of black politicians who serve largely black constituencies, like Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark, Mayor Michael A. Nutter of Philadelphia and Representative Terri Sewell of Alabama — all of whom, like Mr. Obama, have Ivy League degrees and rarely discuss the impact of racism on contemporary black life.

Some argue that de-emphasizing race — and moving to a “colorblind” politics — is an inevitable and beneficial byproduct of societal change. But this ideal is a myth, even if it’s nice to hear. As Frederick Douglass observed, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” The political scientist E. E. Schattschneider noted that conflict was essential to agenda-setting. Other interest groups — Tea Party activists, environmentalists, advocates for gay and lesbian rights, supporters of Israel and, most of all, rich and large corporations — grasp this insight. Have African-Americans forgotten it?

IN making this case, I have avoided speculation about Mr. Obama’s psychology and background — his biracial heritage, his transnational childhood, his community organizing, his aversion to being seen as “angry,” his canny ability to navigate multiple worlds, his talent at engaging with politics while appearing detached from it. As a social scientist I keep returning to the question: What is the best strategy for black communities to pursue their political interests as a whole?

Were Harold Cruse, the author of the unsparing 1967 book “The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual,” still alive, he would despair at the state of black intellectual life. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton, told me: “Too many black intellectuals have given up the hard work of thinking carefully in public about the crisis facing black America. We have either become cheerleaders for President Obama or self-serving pundits.”

Mr. Obama deserves the electoral support — but not the uncritical adulation — of African-Americans. If re-elected he might surprise us by explicitly emphasizing economic and racial justice and advocating “targeted universalism” — job-training and housing programs that are open to all, but are concentrated in low-income, minority communities. He would have to do this in the face of fiscal crisis and poisonous partisanship.

Amid such rancor, African-Americans might come to realize that the idea of having any politician as a role model is incompatible with accountability, the central tenet of representative democracy. By definition, role models are placed on pedestals and emulated, not criticized or held accountable.

To place policy above rhetoric is not to ask what the first black president is doing for blacks; rather, it is to ask what a Democratic president is doing for the most loyal Democratic constituency — who happen to be African-Americans, and who happen to be in dire need of help. Sadly, when it comes to the Obama presidency and black America, symbols and substance have too often been assumed to be one and the same.

A professor of political science and the director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, and the author of “The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and the Rise and Decline of Black Politics.”

The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold. The United States is embroiled in unstable regions that could easily explode into full-blown disaster. An ideological assault from the right has started to undermine the vital health reform law passed in 2010. Those forces are eroding women’s access to health care, and their right to control their lives. Nearly 50 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, all Americans’ rights are cheapened by the right wing’s determination to deny marriage benefits to a selected group of us. Astonishingly, even the very right to vote is being challenged.

That is the context for the Nov. 6 election, and as stark as it is, the choice is just as clear.

President Obama has shown a firm commitment to using government to help foster growth. He has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless. Mr. Obama has impressive achievements despite the implacable wall of refusal erected by Congressional Republicans so intent on stopping him that they risked pushing the nation into depression, held its credit rating hostage, and hobbled economic recovery.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear. But he has tied himself to the ultraconservative forces that control the Republican Party and embraced their policies, including reckless budget cuts and 30-year-old, discredited trickle-down ideas. Voters may still be confused about Mr. Romney’s true identity, but they know the Republican Party, and a Romney administration would reflect its agenda. Mr. Romney’s choice of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate says volumes about that.

We have criticized individual policy choices that Mr. Obama has made over the last four years, and have been impatient with his unwillingness to throw himself into the political fight. But he has shaken off the hesitancy that cost him the first debate, and he approaches the election clearly ready for the partisan battles that would follow his victory.

We are confident he would challenge the Republicans in the “fiscal cliff” battle even if it meant calling their bluff, letting the Bush tax cuts expire and forcing them to confront the budget sequester they created. Electing Mr. Romney would eliminate any hope of deficit reduction that included increased revenues.

In the poisonous atmosphere of this campaign, it may be easy to overlook Mr. Obama’s many important achievements, including carrying out the economic stimulus, saving the auto industry, improving fuel efficiency standards, and making two very fine Supreme Court appointments.

Health Care

Mr. Obama has achieved the most sweeping health care reforms since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The reform law takes a big step toward universal health coverage, a final piece in the social contract.

It was astonishing that Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress were able to get a bill past the Republican opposition. But the Republicans’ propagandistic distortions of the new law helped them wrest back control of the House, and they are determined now to repeal the law.

That would eliminate the many benefits the reform has already brought: allowing children under 26 to stay on their parents’ policies; lower drug costs for people on Medicare who are heavy users of prescription drugs; free immunizations, mammograms and contraceptives; a ban on lifetime limits on insurance payments. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. Starting in 2014, insurers must accept all applicants. Once fully in effect, the new law would start to control health care costs.

Mr. Romney has no plan for covering the uninsured beyond his callous assumption that they will use emergency rooms. He wants to use voucher programs to shift more Medicare costs to beneficiaries and block grants to shift more Medicaid costs to the states.

The Economy

Mr. Obama prevented another Great Depression. The economy was cratering when he took office in January 2009. By that June it was growing, and it has been ever since (although at a rate that disappoints everyone), thanks in large part to interventions Mr. Obama championed, like the $840 billion stimulus bill. Republicans say it failed, but it created and preserved 2.5 million jobs and prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent. Poverty would have been much worse without the billions spent on Medicaid, food stamps and jobless benefits.

Last year, Mr. Obama introduced a jobs plan that included spending on school renovations, repair projects for roads and bridges, aid to states, and more. It was stymied by Republicans. Contrary to Mr. Romney’s claims, Mr. Obama has done good things for small businesses — like pushing through more tax write-offs for new equipment and temporary tax cuts for hiring the unemployed.

The Dodd-Frank financial regulation was an important milestone. It is still a work in progress, but it established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, initiated reform of the derivatives market, and imposed higher capital requirements for banks. Mr. Romney wants to repeal it.

If re-elected, Mr. Obama would be in position to shape the “grand bargain” that could finally combine stimulus like the jobs bill with long-term deficit reduction that includes letting the high-end Bush-era tax cuts expire. Stimulus should come first, and deficit reduction as the economy strengthens. Mr. Obama has not been as aggressive as we would have liked in addressing the housing crisis, but he has increased efforts in refinancing and loan modifications.

Mr. Romney’s economic plan, as much as we know about it, is regressive, relying on big tax cuts and deregulation. That kind of plan was not the answer after the financial crisis, and it will not create broad prosperity.

Foreign Affairs

Mr. Obama and his administration have been resolute in attacking Al Qaeda’s leadership, including the killing of Osama bin Laden. He has ended the war in Iraq. Mr. Romney, however, has said he would have insisted on leaving thousands of American soldiers there. He has surrounded himself with Bush administration neocons who helped to engineer the Iraq war, and adopted their militaristic talk in a way that makes a Romney administration’s foreign policies a frightening prospect.

Mr. Obama negotiated a much tougher regime of multilateral economic sanctions on Iran. Mr. Romney likes to say the president was ineffective on Iran, but at the final debate he agreed with Mr. Obama’s policies. Mr. Obama deserves credit for his handling of the Arab Spring. The killing goes on in Syria, but the administration is working to identify and support moderate insurgent forces there. At the last debate, Mr. Romney talked about funneling arms through Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are funneling arms to jihadist groups.

Mr. Obama gathered international backing for airstrikes during the Libyan uprising, and kept American military forces in a background role. It was smart policy.

In the broadest terms, he introduced a measure of military restraint after the Bush years and helped repair America’s badly damaged reputation in many countries from the low levels to which it had sunk by 2008.

The Supreme Court

The future of the nation’s highest court hangs in the balance in this election — and along with it, reproductive freedom for American women and voting rights for all, to name just two issues. Whoever is president after the election will make at least one appointment to the court, and many more to federal appeals courts and district courts.

Mr. Obama, who appointed the impressive Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, understands how severely damaging conservative activism has been in areas like campaign spending. He would appoint justices and judges who understand that landmarks of equality like the Voting Rights Act must be defended against the steady attack from the right.

Mr. Romney’s campaign Web site says he will “nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito,” among the most conservative justices in the past 75 years. There is no doubt that he would appoint justices who would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Civil Rights

The extraordinary fact of Mr. Obama’s 2008 election did not usher in a new post-racial era. In fact, the steady undercurrent of racism in national politics is truly disturbing. Mr. Obama, however, has reversed Bush administration policies that chipped away at minorities’ voting rights and has fought laws, like the ones in Arizona, that seek to turn undocumented immigrants into a class of criminals.

The military’s odious “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule was finally legislated out of existence, under the Obama administration’s leadership. There are still big hurdles to equality to be brought down, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the outrageous federal law that undermines the rights of gay men and lesbians, even in states that recognize those rights.

Though it took Mr. Obama some time to do it, he overcame his hesitation about same-sex marriage and declared his support. That support has helped spur marriage-equality movements around the country. His Justice Department has also stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act against constitutional challenges.

Mr. Romney opposes same-sex marriage and supports the federal act, which not only denies federal benefits and recognition to same-sex couples but allows states to ignore marriages made in other states. His campaign declared that Mr. Romney would not object if states also banned adoption by same-sex couples and restricted their rights to hospital visitation and other privileges.

Mr. Romney has been careful to avoid the efforts of some Republicans to criminalize abortion even in the case of women who had been raped, including by family members. He says he is not opposed to contraception, but he has promised to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood, on which millions of women depend for family planning.

For these and many other reasons, we enthusiastically endorse President Barack Obama for a second term, and express the hope that his victory will be accompanied by a new Congress willing to work for policies that Americans need.

Your posts have been removed because they are simply political commentary from your point of view. This thread is about the election of Obama and Romney and articles that directly reflect that election in the USA.

The Romney campaign has jumped the lie shark with their new ad slyly building on the lie that Chrysler is moving Jeep jobs to China. Romney told this easily disproven falsehood to Ohioans at a rally last week. Chrysler pointed out that a “careful and unbiased” understanding “would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments.”

When asked to comment on Romney’s claims, the Romney campaign at first refused to comment and then defended the lie with an already debunked Bloomberg article that everyone knows is wrong. The press is not impressed. It seems they have finally met a lie they can’t excuse.

Here’s a roundup of the brutal reaction:

Detroit Free Press: “Not only was the story wrong, Romney took criticism for not knowing better and repeating it without questioning it.”

Toledo Blade: “‘The latest Romney ad, I will grant you, is a clever play on words to avoid saying things that are utterly false,’ Mr. Rattner said, referring to a new Romney ad out today. But he said the implication of the ad is ‘just not true. Chrysler is adding people. It’s made major investments in the Toledo Wrangler plant.’”

Huffington Post: “Where the ad goes from misleading to something more nefarious is in the text it shows. At one point, it displays a line from a Bloomberg story stating that Chrysler “plans to return Jeep output to China,” the implication being that the company is moving operations there as opposed to expanding operations that are already there.”

Wall Street Journal: “So far, the Romney campaign hasn’t issued a public statement on the flap.”

Sam Stein ‏@samsteinhp i asked this morning and am still waiting this evening: anyone have a sound defense of this Romney Jeep ad?

Ron Fournier ‏@ron_fournier Nope “@samsteinhp: i asked this morning and am still waiting this evening: anyone have a sound defense of this Romney Jeep ad?”

Ben White ‏@morningmoneyben Wait, not only did Romney camp not back off the erroneous Jeep to China canard, they made an ad out of it? My god

The truth is that Chrysler is not moving its Jeep production from America to China. In fact they are adding jobs, “Chrysler Group announced that it will invest $500 million at the Toledo Assembly Complex (Ohio) for the production of the next generation Jeep® SUV in 2013. As a result, the Company will add a second shift of production or about 1,100 jobs in the third quarter of 2013.”

The press is confused by Mitt’s mendacity, especially the conservative Detroit Free Press, which endorsed Mitt only to find him lying about their area of expertise — the auto industry. They were shocked when they tried to get the Romney campaign to comment on Romney’s Jeep lies and the campaign blew them off and then continued to tell the lie. Yes, this is the candidate they endorsed for President.

This is hardly Romney’s first go at ignoring facts. Mitt Romney makes his own reality and is outraged if you point to facts because they are not facts in Mitt Romney’s book. Romney is the sole decider of what is a fact and what is not in Mittland.

With Turnout up 20%, Democrats Lead Republicans 50%-31% in North Carolina Early Voting

By: Jason Easley October 28th, 2012

The early voting numbers in North Carolina are trickling in, and they don’t look good for Romney. Democrats lead Republicans 50%-31% in early voting, turnout is up 20% overall, and young voter turnout is up 24%.

The Obama campaign’s attempt to win North Carolina for a second time is built on getting voters who are don’t vote in every election registered and voting early. Since July, Democrats have almost doubled Republicans in new voter registrations, 120,000-68,000. Since 2008, the number of African Americans who have registered to vote in the state has increased by 168,000. So far these efforts are paying off in early voting, as Democrats who didn’t vote in 2010 are outvoting Republicans by a 2 to 1 margin.

African-American voters make up 22% of North Carolina’s electorate, and their early voting turnout is up 23% over 2008. African Americans have already cast 72,000 more ballots in North Carolina than at the same time in 2008. Turnout among young voters is also up 24%, and it is a pretty safe bet that the vast majority of these young and African-American voters aren’t showing up to support Romney.

Overall, 50% of the early votes that have been cast have been by Democrats. Thirty one percent have come from Republicans. Early voting turnout is up 20% over the same point in 2008, and 1.3 million votes cast (an increase of 277,000 over this point in 2008.)

Unlike Ohio where both the polls and the early voting numbers both favor Obama, the polls in North Carolina show a tie or small Romney lead. The Republicans wanted to have North Carolina wrapped up by now, and they don’t. Romney has been unable to close the deal in the state, and if President Obama can pile up a huge early voting edge, Romney may have to fight for a state that his campaign wants everyone to believe is in the bag.

Obama only won North Carolina by 14,000 votes in 2008, and it would surprise no one if Romney won it in 2012. One thing that is becoming clear is that whoever wins the state will not have a large margin of victory. It would not be surprising if the Tar Heel State was decided by a similarly small margin to that of 2008.

Don’t believe the bluster coming from the Romney campaign about North Carolina. It is far from a done deal. In fact, either candidate could still win the state.

While Republicans have stepped up their early voting game, it wouldn’t be shocking if the vastly superior Obama ground game kept the state blue in 2012.

The Romney campaign is trying to depress Democratic early voting turnout by claiming the state is a done deal for him. If you haven’t voted yet, go vote.

Because just like in 2008, your vote could be the margin of victory in North Carolina.

This most stunning part of all this is that about 90 million of American will vote for this pathological liar, psychopath, and sociopath anyway ...

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XL

By Steve Benen

Fri Oct 26, 2012 2:23 PM EDT

A joke made the rounds this week, which resonated with me. It goes like this: a man dies, goes to heaven, stands before St. Peter, and see a huge wall of clocks. The man asks what all the clocks are for and St. Peter explains, "These are lie clocks. Everyone on earth has a lie clock. Every time a person lies, the clock hands move."

Pointing to one, the man says, "Whose clock is that?"

"That's Mother Teresa's," St. Peter answers. "The hands have never moved, indicating she never told a lie."

"Incredible," the man responds. "And whose clock is that?"

St. Peter responds, "That's Abraham Lincoln's. The hands moved twice telling us he told two lies in his entire life."

"Where is Mitt Romney's clock?" the man asks.

"Romney's clock is in Jesus' office," St. Peter says. "He's using it as a ceiling fan."

It's obviously just a joke, but it reinforces an increasingly common observation about Romney's casual relationship with the truth. Consider, for example, the 40th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. At an event in Defiance, Ohio, last night, Romney told voters, "I saw a story today, that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China."

Even by Romney standards, this was a rather brazen falsehood.

2. At a campaign event in Reno, Nevada, Romney said President Obama has been "unable to communicate an agenda" for a second term.

The day before, Obama published a 20-page agenda for a second term.

3. At the same event, Romney said, "The idea that the president would cut Medicare for current seniors ... is something which I don't think the American people understand."

The notion that Obama is cutting Medicare for current seniors is ridiculously untrue. Indeed, Obama is expanding benefits, not cutting them.

4. Romney added, "I will get America to finally be on track to a balanced budget."

5. Romney also argued, "If I'm elected -- when I'm elected -- we're going to finally get this housing market going."

The housing market is currently seeing its strongest gains in several years. Romney, meanwhile, has said he intends to deliberately avoid any efforts to curtail foreclosures.

6. Romney said, "Under President Obama, you really don't have a jobs plan."

Romney doesn't have to like the American Jobs Act, but he shouldn't get away with brazenly lying about its existence.

7. Romney went on to say, "Paul Ryan and I have a plan with five simple steps. These steps are going to get America's economy just cooking again."

The five-point plan -- oil drilling, trade, privatizing K-12 education, vague assertions about debt reduction, and ambiguous promises about doing nice things for small businesses -- is a rehash of Bush/Cheney promises. No credible analysis of the vague agenda has found it capable of boosting the economy.

8. At a campaign event in Henderson, Nevada, Romney blamed Obama for the "doubling of the gasoline prices you're paying."

This is wildly misleading. It's true that when Obama took office, gas cost about $1.81 a gallon, and it's more than double now. And how did gas prices get so low in late 2008 and early 2009? Because there was a global economic catastrophe -- gas was cheap because the economy had fallen off a cliff, and demand crawled to a stop. As the economy improved, demand went up, and the price of gas started climbing. It's Economics 101.

9. At the same event, Romney said, " We're gonna crack down on cheaters when they steal our jobs through unfair trade practices like China, we'll crack down. He has not."

Yes he has.

10. In a television ad debuted this week, Romney says a second Obama term would mean "the debt will grow from $16 trillion to $20 trillion."

If Romney's elected and the Ryan budget plan is implemented, the debt will grow from $16 trillion to $20 trillion.

11. In the same ad, Romney adds that if there's a second Obama term "20 million Americans could lose their employer-based health care."

No. Millions may get different insurance, but they'll have better and more secure coverage, not nothing. By Romney's reasoning, if you replace your old, unreliable car with a new one, you've lost your car.

12. Also in the ad, Romney says in a second term for the president, "taxes on the middle class will go up by $4,000."

That's absurd.

13. In the same ad, Romney whines about "$716 billion in Medicare cuts that hurt current seniors."

This is deeply silly. Obama strengthened the Medicare system's finances by reducing payments to insurance companies and hospitals. Benefits for seniors have been expanded, not cut.

14. In this week's debate in Boca, Romney argued, "Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea."

Iran doesn't share a border with Syria, and Iran already borders two bodies of water.

15. Romney also said, "We need to have strong allies. Our association and connection with our allies is essential to America's strength. We're the great nation that has 42 allies and friends around the world."

The United States has more than 42 allies and friends around the world.

16. Romney argued, "When the students took to the streets in Tehran and the people there protested, the Green Revolution occurred. For the president to be silent I thought was an enormous mistake."

Obama wasn't silent, and the comment continues to reinforce suspicions that Romney is incapable of thinking strategically when it comes to foreign policy.

17. Romney also said, "The president said by now we'd be at 5.4 percent unemployment."

That's a favorite GOP talking point, but the president never said this.

18. "As a matter of fact, Latin America's economy is almost as big as the economy of China."

As a matter of fact, that's really not true.

19. Reflecting on his education record, Romney boasted, "While I was governor, I was proud that our fourth graders came out number one of all 50 states in English and then also in math, and our eighth graders number one in English and also in math -- first time one state had been number one in all four measures. How did we do that? Well, Republicans and Democrats came together on a bipartisan basis to put in place education that focused on having great teachers in the classroom."

At a minimum, this is wildly misleading. It's true that policymakers from both parties instituted effective education reforms that improved Massachusetts schools, but this was done many years before Romney took office.

20. Romney argued, "Come on our website, you'll look at how we get to a balanced budget within eight to 10 years."

Aside from some vague platitudes, there is no balanced-budget plan on Romney's website. There's a good reason for that -- his numbers don't add up.

21. Romney went on to say, "We [balance the budget] by getting, by reducing spending in a whole series of programs. By the way, number one I get rid of is Obamacare. There are a number of things that sound good but, frankly, we just can't afford them."

This is incoherent and absurd. "Obamacare" cuts the deficit to the tune of about $109 billion over the next decade. It's simply incoherent to say you'll cut the deficit by eliminating a law, which would in turn increase the deficit. That's like promising to put out a fire by using more kerosene.

22. Romney argued, "I was in the world of business for 25 years. If you didn't balance your budget, you went out of business."

That's both untrue and ridiculous. Businesses operate in the red all the time, and take out loans for capital improvements, expansions, acquisitions, etc. If Romney's background is in the private sector, how could he not know this?

23. Romney also said, "I went to the Olympics that was out of balance, and we got it on balance."

In context, Romney made it sound as if he balanced the Olympics' books through skill. In reality, he balanced his budget at the Olympics thanks to a massive taxpayer bailout, the largest in U.S. history for any Olympic games.

24. Romney argued, "Our Navy is smaller now than any time since 1917."

Oh, please.

25. Romney added, "[T]he president began what I've called an apology tour."

This is what I've called Romney lying.

26. Romney also said, "[T]he president said he was going to create daylight between ourselves and Israel."

There's simply no record of Obama ever saying that or anything like it.

27. Romney argued, "I look around the world, I don't see our influence growing around the world."

There's ample evidence that respect and support for the United States around the world has improved under Obama.

28. Romney added, "Is al Qaeda on the run, on its heels? No."

Sure it is.

29. Romney complained about "our decision to cut back on our military capabilities -- a trillion dollars."

Romney appears to be referring to cuts, which have not yet kicked in, and which were crafted, not by the White House, but by Romney's own party. They were also endorsed and supported by his own running mate.

30. In reference to the rescue of the American auto industry, Romney argued, "I said they need, these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy, and in that process they can get government help and government guarantees."

That is absolutely not what he said.

31. Romney went on to say, "I want to invest in research. Research is great. Providing funding to universities and think tank, great. But investing in companies? Absolutely not. That's the wrong way to go."

We know Romney doesn't mean this because, as governor, he invested in companies all the time.

32. Romney added we're "heading towards Greece."

For those who have even a passing familiarity with the Greek crisis, this is painfully untrue.

33. Romney argued, "I'll get people back to work with 12 million new jobs."

Putting aside the pesky detail that Romney doesn't actually have a specific jobs plan, the claim about 12 million jobs has been definitely proven fraudulent. His own economic advisor was forced to concede the candidate's -- and the campaign's -- talking point was based on a falsehood.

34. Romney also said, "I was in a state where my legislature was 87 percent Democrat. I learned how to get along on the other side of the aisle."

There's ample reason to believe the exact opposite -- independent budget analysts have concluded that once Romney slashes taxes on the wealthy, increases defense spending, increases entitlement spending, and cuts corporate tax rates, all while promising to balance the budget, he'll have no choice but to ask more from the middle class. Indeed, there's no other way for Romney to keep his other promises.

36. "Look, the president wants to fundamentally transform America. He's making us more and more like Europe. I don't want to become Europe."

The irony is, Europe is trying to grow through austerity, just as Romney intends to do here. He's lying in a self-refuting sort of way.

The Boston Globe Endorses President Obama Over Their Former Gov Romney

By: Sarah Jones October 29th, 2012

After the Salt Lake Tribune endorsed Obama, Romney must have been relieved when his other home state paper the Detroit News endorsed him. But today, the real blow comes from Massachusetts, where he was Governor. The Boston Globe has endorsed President Obama.

The Globe writes of many reasons to reelect Obama, saying that not only would a second term be a mandate against the Republican obstructionism, but it would curb the power of special interests:

“Obama’s reelection would also curb the growing power of special interests, who so often hide their self-serving agendas behind a facade of fist-in-the-air patriotism and promises of low taxes. Anyone who lived through the crash of 2008, and now sees Republicans in Congress seeking to thwart the Dodd-Frank law’s protections, should sense the true impetus behind all the pronouncements about unleashing the job creators. The Supreme Court’s wrongheaded Citizens United decision, granting corporations unlimited power to influence campaigns, provided yet another weapon for the powerful to deploy against the general interest.”

The Globe praises Obama’s diligence and bipartisanship, and calls out the Republican meme that it’s Obama who is divisive, “He stands between the divides in American society, so some say he must therefore be the source of division. But as president, Obama has reached out repeatedly to Republicans and shied away from the I’m-the-decider pronouncements of his predecessor. He’s been diligent and responsible — to a fault.”

Reminding us where we were and what we avoided under Obama’s leadership (with a few painful reminders of the “chaos” of the Bush years), they write, “As Obama was taking the oath on Jan. 20, 2009, the economy was losing a whopping 818,000 jobs in that month alone, with almost as many to follow in each of the next two months. Soon, Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package stopped the hemorrhage, and the still-bruised labor market has added jobs fitfully ever since.”

The Globe makes more of a case for Obama than a case against Romney, though they seem as confused as most as to which Romney is running for President and this is a danger for a president, “Identifying the real Romney on any major issue — social, economic, or foreign — is impossible. But a president this vulnerable within his party, needing to satisfy a conservative Congress, could never make good on his moderate commitments. Whichever Romney shows up, the Romney years would end up looking a lot like the Bush years.”

Those are scary words. The Globe harkened back to the chaos of Bush in a way that freshly reminded me of what a different style of leadership we have in Obama. We don’t lurch from crisis to crisis having to give Obama the benefit of the doubt when he wasn’t around. Obama canceled his campaign plans as Sandy was heading our way, and he’s been quietly there, working, planning, organizing, calling governors — he’s been there. Obama is a soothing presence, not only because he’s working steadily and he never makes erratic sudden moves, but because we can count on him to never be small or petty. He is always just putting Americans first, as even Governor Chris Christie acknowledged yesterday.

The Boston Globe is the paper that knows Romney’s elected leadership style best. The Salt Lake Tribune would be second in knowing Romney’s leadership style. It would be natural for both papers to have a loyalty to home stater Romney, but both papers went for President Obama.

Mitt lied about Jeep because he has to lie. The truth would sink his campaign.

By: Black Liberal Boomer October 30th, 2012

Of course Romney’s Jeep ad was a lie, and no it’s not surprising that he has continued to perpetuate that lie for as long as he figures he can get away with it.

That’s because Romney himself is a lie. His position on (INSERT CAMPAIGN PROMISE HERE) is a lie, and if he says it’s not a lie then he’s lying. It’s like the Rev. Al Sharpton said a few weeks ago, I believe it was on the MSNBC panel discussing the second presidential debate, when he said that Mitt Romney was an “accomplished liar”, whereas Paul Ryan was only a “fibber” striving to reach the breathtaking heights of the acknowledged master.

I realize I’m not breaking new ground when pointing to the fact that Mitt is a liar, and yet it does seem somewhat comical in a painful sort of way at this point when some of us continue to act surprised at stories such as the one about the Jeep ad which manufactured a lie so big and bold that the Jeep folks themselves over at Chrysler had to step up and let it be known what a whopper this one was. Sure it was a whopper, but then this is the guy who spun so many lies so hard and fast during his first debate that Obama got dizzy. Then came the second debate and he lied some more, only this time POTUS was ready for him (“Can you say that a little louder, Candy?”). I’m pretty sure he went on to toss a few more onto the heap during the third and final debate, but at this point who’s counting, right?

Romney is lying because Romney has to lie. It’s the best card he has to play in a stacked deck, betting on the ignorance and short term memory of the electorate. Oh, and rightwing racial hatred. Romney knows that if he were to tell too much of the truth then he would have to switch sides and begin campaigning for Obama, so instead he and his crew of ankle biters have conspired to weave an intricate alternate universe where the truth is defined strictly by the degree to which it benefits Romney. For instance, in RomneyWorld, Romney never told Detroit to go bankrupt, he only suggested that they consider a managed bankruptcy and Obama stole his idea from him. In RomneyWorld, Obama Care was modeled after..well…something else. In RomneyWorld, a steady if somewhat slowly improving unemployment rate (5.2 million jobs over the past 31 months) is not what a recovery looks like.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled democracy.

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Clinton slams Romney: Jeep ad the ‘biggest load of bull in the world’

By Eric W. DolanMonday, October 29, 2012 22:50 EDT

Former President Bill Clinton on Monday blasted Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney over a misleading advertisement his campaign recently released.

“Now it turns out that Jeep is reopening in China because they made so much money here they can afford to do it and they are going on with their plans here,” he said at a campaign event in Youngstown, Ohio. “They put out a statement today saying that it was the biggest load of bull in the world that they would consider shutting down their American operation.”

“They are roaring in America thanks to people like the people of Ohio. So in keeping with that, here is what I want to say I think this election is about. I support Barack Obama because I think he has got a better jobs plan, and a better jobs record, a better budget plan, a better education plan, a better health care plan than his opponent Governor Romney.”

Citing a Bloomberg News report, the ad suggests that Chrysler is moving Jeep production from North America to China and blames Obama for taking the car maker into bankruptcy. The President forced Chrysler into federal bankruptcy protection in 2009 and the company is now operated by Italian car maker Fiat.

However, Chrysler is not actually shifting Jeep production from North America to China. Instead, it is looking to expand production in China — the world’s largest auto market — while still maintaining production in the U.S. The company announced Monday that it nearly doubled its profit in the July through September period.

In the span of 30 seconds, the Obama campaign called Romney both a liar and dishonest. The problem for Romney is that Ohio voters aren’t going to be fooled by his last ditch gambit to scare them into supporting him. During a conference call with reporters today, UAW Region 2B Director Ken Lortz summed up the reaction to Romney’s desperate tactics as, “The people of Toledo and North Ohio are being subjected to this filth and we won’t tolerate it.”

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina pointed out that Romney is getting desperate, so he released an ad that everyone knows is false. The fact that Romney ran this ad tells you a lot about him and where he stands in Ohio. The reality is that Romney is trailing in 14 of the 16 most recent polls released in the state. (The other two polls are tied.) Even though Romney isn’t leading a single poll of the state, many in the mainstream media continue to push the Romney campaign’s spin that the state is a toss up. As Nate Silver keeps pointing out, the data shows that the state isn’t a toss up. Obama is the favorite to win in Ohio.

Desperate campaigns do things like intentionally twisting a Bloomberg article so that they can claim that Jeep is moving jobs to China when the opposite is true. The Romney campaign has been backing their lies about Jeeps with bluffs about momentum. They are also bluffing about expanding the map, and their biggest bluff of all is the idea that Ohio is somehow up for grabs.

The hard data coming out about early voting doesn’t lie. Obama is piling up big leads in Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, and the president is doing well in North Carolina. Romney currently leads in zero battleground states. Mitt Romney had to have Ohio. He is not getting it, so his campaign is subtly starting to spin away from Ohio by claiming that Wisconsin is the new Ohio, and Minnesota is the new Ohio.

Mitt Romney is trying to lie his way to victory in Ohio, and the Obama campaign has responded by calling out the lie and the liar.

Look, his saying he’ll get tough on China is only outdone by his bizarre, bizarre claim about the automobile industry. A week ago, remember what he was saying with the President — is, Mr. President, I supported the rescue of the automobile industry. I did it. I said exactly what you did. I said we’ll get them through bankruptcy, et cetera. Problem is he did not say there should be a — he would not allow a penny of federal money to help them out, and there was nobody, including Bain Capital, willing to come in and help them out.

But here’s the thing. This guy pirouettes more than a ballerina. Now he says — seriously, think of what he’s saying within two weeks. I find — I’ve never seen this in public. I’ve served with eight Presidents. I have never seen this in my public life. Within two weeks, he’s running an ad in this state saying that President Obama made the companies go bankrupt; is now — gave the industry the Italians, who are selling it to the Chinese. Whoa. As we say in my faith, bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I mean, what are you talking about? I have never seen anything like that. It’s an absolutely patently false assertion. It’s such an outrageous assertion that one of the few times in my memory a major American corporation, Chrysler, has felt obliged to go public and say, there is no truth. They said, Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. Chrysler Corporation, which is highly unusual, said, a careful and unbiased reading would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments.

Ladies and gentlemen, have they no shame?

Romney will say anything, absolutely anything, to win, it seems. But he can’t run from the truth. He said in an article entitled — that he wrote — “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

Vice President Biden played the role of our moral compass today, articulating what so many are feeling about the Romney campaign. “Have they no shame?” No, apparently, they don’t.

When Joe pointed out that this kind of blatantly fasle assertion compelled a major corporation to step forward in order to clarify it, his words have weight. It’s not too often you’re going to see a major corporation step into a political fray but Romney has a way of pushing people, allies, elected officials from other countries, and now corporations into defending themselves against his abuse.

The problem is that not only did Romney not think about the middle class he was frightening in Ohio with his Jeep moving to China lies, but he also never thought about the impact of his completely false assertion on the Chrysler corporation. Last I heard, corporations were people, so it follows that Romney has misused and abused Chrysler for his political gain with nary a thought as to what is moral, proper, or even wise. Were he to be president, he might find the binders full of enemies he’s creating troublesome, and so might we.

Smoking Joe really brought it home with this, “I find — I’ve never seen this in public. I’ve served with eight Presidents. I have never seen this in my public life.” It’s finally sinking in that Mitt Romney isn’t a Michele Bachmann type liar. Not only is Romney running for a national office on a platform of lies, but he isn’t crazy like Bachmann. At least Bachmann only attacks those she will never need. But Romney isn’t even that smart. Romney attacks our greatest allies, puts words in the Australian Foreign Minister’s mouth — using him to attack the President of the US which is not good for Australia, and uses Chrysler to scare Ohioans into forgetting that he was against them when it mattered.

Has Mitt Romney no shame? I haven’t seen any sign that he is capable of feeling shame. He proceeded forward with the Jeep ad knowing it was false. He avoids the press Paris Hitlon style, pretending he didn’t hear them as his entourage presses on. Mitt Romney is a hot mess of a candidate who never should have made it out of the primaries. The only reason he did was Jon Huntsman was too sane for the teabaggers and the rest of the gang was too crazy for average Americans. That left Republicans with the guy who will say anything to anyone with no guiding conscience and no shame.

Mitt Romney makes his own reality and he believes he has the right to do so. Didn’t we already have a decider in office? That didn’t work out so well.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney used a loophole to “rent” the Mormon church’s tax exemption status and defer paying taxes for 15 years, according to a new report.

Tax returns obtained by Bloomberg News through a Freedom of Information Act request indicated that Romney set up a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) in June 1996 just before Congress cracked down on the loophole in 1997.

“In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing — to defer taxes for more than 15 years,” Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker explained. “At the same time he is benefitting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires.”

Estates lawyer Jonathan Blattmachr told Bloomberg that Romney’s trust benefits from the Mormon church’s exempt status because charities don’t pay capital gains taxes when they make a profit from the sale of assets.

“The main benefit from a charitable remainder trust is the renting from your favorite charity of its exemption from taxation,” Blattmachr said, adding that the charitable contribution “is just a throwaway” and the church would receive little if any financial benefit from the trust.

“I used to structure them so the value dedicated to charity was as close to zero as possible without being zero,” he pointed out.

The CRUT allows individuals to “defer capital gains taxes on any profit from the sale of the assets, and receive a small upfront charitable deduction and a stream of yearly cash payments,” Drucker wrote. “Like an individual retirement account, the trust allows money to grow tax deferred, while like an annuity it also pays Romney a steady income. After the funder’s death, the trust’s remaining assets go to a designated charity.”

In fact, the amount available to go to the Mormon church has decreased from at least $750,000 in 2001 to $421,203 at the end of 2011 as Romney has collected yearly cash payments from the trust.

The Romney campaign declined to answer questions about the trust but insisted that it was “operated in accordance with the law” in an email to Bloomberg.

The trust represents a small fraction of Romney’s more than $250 million fortune and is only one of several methods the formal Bain Capital CEO has employed to avoid paying taxes.

Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who is also a Mormon, had suggested that the Republican presidential nominee refused to release his tax returns because he had not paid any income taxes over a 10-year period.

In a September speech on the Senate floor, Reid said that leaked tapes insulting the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes as “dependant” on the government have gave the world a “rare look at the real Mitt Romney.”

“For all we know Mitt Romney could be one of those who have paid no federal income tax. Thousands of families making more than a million dollars per year pay nothing in federal income tax,” the Nevada Democrat observed. “Is Mitt Romney among those? We’ll never know because he refuses to release his tax returns.”

“We know that Mitt Romney pays a lower tax rate than middle-class families, thanks to a number of things he’s done: Swiss bank accounts, Cayman Islands tax shelters. And we can only imagine what new secrets would be revealed if he showed the American people a dozen years of tax returns like his dad did.”

Reid noted that most of “those people” who Romney talked about “are not avoiding their tax bills using Cayman Islands tax shelters or Swiss Bank accounts like Mitt Romney. Millions of the 47 percent are seniors on Social Security, who don’t have Bain Capital retirement funds or inherited stock to fall back on.”

This pathological liar simply can not help himself .. for those in America imagine this soulless automaton actually being the president of your country ...

Romney’s New Radio Ad Reaches Surreal Level of Desperation and Fail

By: Sarah Jones October 30th, 2012

Instead of killing his Jeep ad lie, Romney expanded it to a radio ad. Buckle up, because this ad is much, much worse than the TV ad. It’s so bad that it pains me to have to report that a candidate for president stooped this low. Mind you, I had the Palin beat for 4 years. I’ve seen low.

The new Romney ad claims that Obama saved the auto industry for China, not for America. Then he claims that Chrysler will be moving Jeep production to China, a charge he danced around in his TV ad by implying it rather than saying it as he did at a rally in Defiance. Then he claims that when the Detroit News endorsed him they did it because they approved his “understanding” of the auto industry, followed by a claim that Romney would stand up for the auto industry. In reality the Detroit News praised Obama’s leadership for the auto bailout and I suspect they are currently trying to find a way to remove the Romney egg from their editorial board.

Barack Obama says he saved the auto industry. But for who? Ohio, or China? Under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs. But they are planning to double the number of cars built in China — which means 15,000 more jobs for China.

And now comes word that Chrysler plans to start making jeeps in — you guessed it — China. What happened to the promises made to autoworkers in Toledo and throughout Ohio — the same hard-working men and women who were told that Obama’s auto bailout would help them?

Mitt Romney grew up in the Auto Industry. Maybe that’s why the Detroit News endorsed him, saying: “Romney understands the industry and will shield it from regulators who never tire of churning out new layers of mandates.” Mitt Romney. He’ll stand up for the auto industry. In Ohio, not China.

It’s hard not to laugh. Mitt Romney, who sends jobs to China as a course of business, is telling folks he will stand up for the auto industry here, not in China — as Sensata workers at Bainport beg him to meet with them about the jobs Bain is moving to China. Deception? This is the big bad wolf disguising himself as grandma to Little Red Riding Hood.

Yes, the radio ad is worse than the TV ad that the The Cleveland Plain Dealer slammed as a ‘masterpiece of misdirection.’ PolitFact was even compelled to label Romney’s TV ad “Pants on Fire” (sadly leaving no room for this new level of fail):

“The Romney campaign ad says Obama ‘sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China’ at the cost of American jobs. The ad leaves the clear impression that Jeeps built in China come at the expense of American workers. The ad miscasts the government’s role in Fiat’s acquisition of Chrysler, and it misrepresents the outcome. Chrysler’s owners had been trying to sell to Italy-based Fiat before Obama took office. The ad ignores the return of American jobs to Chrysler Jeep plants in the United States, and it presents the manufacture of Jeeps in China as a threat, rather than an opportunity to sell cars made in China to Chinese consumers. It strings together facts in a way that presents an wholly inaccurate picture. We rate the statement Pants on Fire!”

Wholly inaccurate and pants on fire, you say? Well, by gosh, Romney figured he better turn that into a radio ad and build on the Ro-mentum, ‘cuz nothing says Mitt Romney like plumbing the depths of deception and trickery.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer says, “It won’t work. Ohio voters know who stepped up when the auto industry was at the abyss — and it wasn’t Romney.”

Romney keeps campaigning in Ohio even as Obama is off dealing with the Superstorm. Sure, Romney said he wasn’t going to, and he’s calling his rally a relief rally, but according to reporters who were there, it is the same campaign rally complete with same video and songs as he always does. Also, the press badges read, “Victory Rally.” They didn’t have time to get the whole new show on apparently, but they can’t stop campaigning because Romney is losing Ohio in early voting.

Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner responded by calling out Romney’s desperation, “Mitt Romney is losing Ohio and he knows it. There’s no other excuse for why he’d run a radio ad that’s even worse than the false TV ad that the Cleveland Plain Dealer slammed as a ‘masterpiece of misdirection.’ These are the facts: Mitt Romney turned his back on the American auto industry and its workers when they were on their knees, led investments in companies that were pioneers in outsourcing to low-wage countries like China, and proposed a tax plan that could create 800,000 jobs overseas, including in China. Ohioans know the truth – President Obama saved an industry that supports one in eight jobs in the state – and they won’t be fooled by these desperate tactics. We’ve always known Mitt Romney would say absolutely anything to win this election, but as he sees it slipping away in the final week, the American people simply cannot trust a word he says.”

The wolf hiding in the Jeep lies is not your friend. He’s just looking for something to harvest, “The better to eat you with!”

How do you know when your lie is so big it won’t be allowed to stand? Maybe it’s when President Clinton said yesterday that Jeep has called Romney’s claim “the biggest load of bull in the world.” Maybe it’s when Vice President Biden asks if you have any shame. Or maybe it’s when the CEO of a major corporation takes to newspapers repeatedly to correct you in no uncertain terms, even though they know they risk alienating the frothing Republican base.

Chrysler isn’t taking Mitt Romney’s lies about Jeep moving production to China lying down. Just to be sure everyone has it right, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has written a letter published in the Detroit News restating the truth for those who have difficulties with reality.

Sadly for Mitt Romney, Chrysler’s side of reality is backed up by numbers and it tells of huge success – another fact Romney wants to pretend isn’t happening.

I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China.

North American production is critical to achieving our goal of selling 800,000 Jeep vehicles by 2014. In fact, U.S. production of our Jeep models has nearly tripled (it is expected to be up 185%) since 2009 in order to keep up with global demand.

Marchionne goes on to rub salt in the wound by pointing out how their success (thank you President Obama) has added jobs and will continue to do so, “With the increase in demand for our vehicles, especially Jeep branded vehicles, we have added more than 11,200 U.S. jobs since 2009. Plants producing Jeep branded vehicles alone have seen the number of people invested in the success of the Jeep brand grow to more than 9,300 hourly jobs from 4,700. This will increase by an additional 1,100 as the Liberty successor, which will be produced in Toledo, is introduced for global distribution in the second quarter of 2013.”

Marchionne makes a case for Jeep’s patriotism which only highlights the lack of patriotism in Romney’s Bain Sensata debacle, “Jeep is one of our truly global brands with uniquely American roots…. Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand. It is inaccurate to suggest anything different.”

Chrysler has committed that the iconic Jeep Wrangler, currently produced in Toledo Ohio, will never be produced outside of the U.S.

What Jeep is doing is building Jeeps for the Chinese market in China, and they are doing this because they have been so successful and want to expand their brand. They are not moving American production to China. Mitt Romney keeps telling us how much he loves cars and how he’s a car guy — how come he doesn’t seem to understand anything about the car business?

Oh, that’s right. Mitt Romney can’t win Ohio based on his record of “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” so he thought he’d smear Chrysler and scare Ohioans with lies about their jobs being shipped to China. Romney calculated the cost of lying to you and determined it was worth it. Who cares if he destroys Chrysler’s reputation or terrifies hard working people in Ohio so long as Romney gets what he wants.

Now, imagine Chrysler in this situation was Iran and the Ohioans were Iranian citizens. Any cost to having a leader willing to smear, lie and deceive with no shame in order to get what he wants? What if he wants a war to repay his campaign donors and the military contractors comprising his military “advisers”?

The President visited a Jeep Wrangler assembly plant in Toledo in June, where workers thanked him for saving their jobs. They wore t-shirts thanking him and one told the President, “Thanks for saving my job.” The President responded to the worker, “I appreciate your service, Mr. Dandar.”

Romney would have let an entire American industry go bankrupt and shipped the jobs to China in order to harvest GM and Chrysler for profit. He doesn’t want you to know that, so he’s deliberately lying in order to deceive you.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — As President Obama and Mitt Romney enter the closing week of the presidential race, where the 18 electoral votes of Ohio are seen by both sides as critical to victory, Mr. Obama’s ability to prevent erosion among working-class voters may be his best path to re-election.

In Ohio, according to the latest poll of likely voters by Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News, Mr. Obama runs nearly even with Mr. Romney among white voters who do not have college degrees.

That helps explain why he appears slightly better positioned there in the closing week of the campaign than in Florida and Virginia, where the polls found that Mr. Romney holds an advantage of about 30 percentage points among those voters.

The presidential contest has become an intense state-by-state fight, with the climate in Ohio shaped by months of efforts by the Obama campaign to portray Mr. Romney as a job killer who opposed the president’s decision to bail out the auto industry.

Mr. Obama, who has a 50 percent to 45 percent edge here, also appears to be benefiting from an economic recovery in Ohio that is running ahead of the national recovery.

The poll found that nearly half of all white voters without college degrees here say the economy is improving, and most give Mr. Obama some credit. Only about a quarter of those voters in Virginia and Florida say their economy is getting better.

The polls, along with interviews with strategists and supporters in the three battleground states, illustrate the dynamic facing both campaigns in the final days of the race. The race is essentially tied in Florida and Virginia, the polls found.

The presidential race is now brimming with even more uncertainty as Mr. Obama canceled a trip to Ohio on Wednesday and stays off the campaign trail for a third straight day. Mr. Romney was set to resume his schedule in Florida and Virginia, but he faced a delicate task of campaigning during a natural disaster.

But the campaign is still very much alive here in Ohio, where Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama are locked in a bitter duel over blue-collar voters. A dispute over the Obama administration’s 2009 effort to rescue the auto industry boiled over yet again on Tuesday, with the Romney campaign arguing in a new radio commercial that the government’s $80 billion assistance plan helped China more than the United States.

The chief executive of Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne, took the rare step of disputing a presidential candidate by calling the assertion “inaccurate.” He said production would not be moved from the United States to China, adding: “Jeep is one of our truly global brands with uniquely American roots. This will never change.”

The Ohio economy’s recovery has complicated Mr. Romney’s efforts to portray Mr. Obama as an ineffective leader. The president is seen in a favorable light by 52 percent of likely voters, compared with 46 percent who have a favorable opinion of Mr. Romney.

Yet the poll here showed that the race is tight, with Mr. Obama’s five-point edge the same as last week but cut in half from a month ago.

Among the likely voters in Ohio who say they are paying a lot of attention to the race, Mr. Obama’s edge narrows to one percentage point, or essentially tied, which underscores the extent to which the race will turn on the get-out-the-vote efforts of each campaign.

“It seems like the economy is on an upswing,” Kathleen Foley, a special-education teacher in Dayton, said in a follow-up interview. “I truly believe that in the next few years, our economy is going to see an upswing. I’d like Obama to get some credit for the work he’s done.”

In the closing stages of the race, Mr. Romney has taken steps to emphasize the moderate elements of his record. His campaign was running a television advertisement here on Tuesday reminding voters that he supports abortion rights in the case of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother. Democratic groups and the Obama campaign countered with their own ads.

The economy remains the top issue on the minds of voters, the poll found, and the ads were dismissed as not relevant by one poll respondent, Dana Hogan of Cincinnati.

“Do I really think we’re going to go back to the point where women won’t be able to have abortions or birth control is going to be rationed? That’s just silly to even think of,” said Ms. Hogan, who works at a small company and spoke in a follow-up interview. “Some women do still get really riled up by that, but I think it’s just a scare tactic. Really, you think women are that dumb?”

The presidential race, which has largely played out in nine swing states, is suddenly showing signs of expansion. The Romney campaign and Republican groups announced new investments in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota, a reflection that the contest was tight across the country and their options in the existing battleground states may not be enough for Mr. Romney to reach the necessary 270 electoral votes.

A nationwide poll of likely voters from The New York Times and CBS News, which was released Tuesday evening, found that more voters now view Mr. Romney as a stronger leader on the economy and Mr. Obama as a better guardian of the middle class. The president was the choice of 48 percent, with 47 percent for Mr. Romney. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

But the biggest focal point of the race remains in seven states, particularly Ohio, where Mr. Romney appeared for the last three days. Mr. Obama had been scheduled to make two stops in Ohio on Wednesday before the storm hit the East Coast. Both candidates are set to make multiple trips back to the state before Election Day, aides said.

The Times, in collaboration with Quinnipiac and CBS News, has tracked the presidential race with recurring polls in key battleground states. The three latest surveys, which were conducted Oct. 23 to 28 among likely voters on landlines and cellphones, are the final series in the project.

In Florida, the overall race has narrowed considerably from a month ago, with Mr. Obama now the choice of 48 percent to 47 percent for Mr. Romney. In Virginia, Mr. Obama has 49 percent, with 47 percent for Mr. Romney. The results in each state have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

In each state, Mr. Obama holds a double-digit lead among female voters, while Mr. Romney does better among men, especially white men. Most voters age 65 and older in each state prefer Mr. Romney, while younger voters support Mr. Obama. Voters who call themselves independents are closely split in Florida and Ohio, the polls found, but support Mr. Romney by a wide margin in Virginia.

The polls offer a window into the intensity of the campaign in these states, with more than three in four likely voters in each state saying they are paying a lot of attention to the election and wide majorities saying they have been contacted by one or both campaigns.

Few voters in each state — just 3 percent in Florida and Virginia, and 4 percent in Ohio — remain undecided. And just 3 percent of voters who support a candidate in Florida, and 4 percent in Ohio and Virginia, say they might change their mind.

In Ohio and Florida, the voting is already well under way. The Ohio poll found an advantage for the Obama campaign in their efforts to get out early voters. Nearly one in four voters in Ohio said they had already cast their ballots, and 6 in 10 of them say it was for Mr. Obama, compared with 34 percent for Mr. Romney.

The poll found a closer race among the one in five voters in Florida who said they had already voted, with 50 percent of them saying they backed Mr. Obama and 44 percent saying they supported Mr. Romney.

Jeff Zeleny reported from Columbus, and Dalia Sussman from New York. Reporting was contributed by Allison Kopicki, Marjorie Connelly and Megan Thee-Brenan in New York, and Craig Duff in Cincinnati.

Romney Pays Dearly for Making the Fatal Mistake of Lying about Corporations

By: Sarah Jones October 31st, 2012

The Denver Post joined the line up of papers attacking Mitt Romney’s blatant dishonesty in the ad where he claims that Jeep is moving jobs to China and the radio ad in which the Republican candidate claims Obama saved GM for the Chinese. There’s an entire line up of papers that have taken a hard line against Romney’s Jeep and GM lies.

When Romney used his usual tactic of making harmful things up in a chaotic attempt to make himself look better, he made a fatal mistake in taking aim at corporations. Here’s a round up.

The Denver Post begins with, “Nothing smells like desperation more than the falsehoods and half-truths coming out of the Romney campaign about Chrysler purportedly moving Jeep manufacturing jobs to China. The episode has been shameful.” And it gets worse. They denounce Romney for his refusal to let facts get in the way and call him out on basically not liking that Obama was making inroads in Ohio because of his auto bailout, “But why let the facts get in the way when you can exploit a poorly written news story for political gain in a must-win state?”

It seems others agree with the Denver Post, from the New York Times to the Toledo Blade. I pointed out yesterday that Romney’s statements indicated that he knows absolutely nothing about global auto manufacturing. But it is a lot more fun coming from Greg Martin, spokesman for GM, who called Romney out on being a know-nothing in the New York Times. New York Times: “‘That is absolutely bereft of any fundamental understanding of the global automotive industry,’ Mr. Martin said. ‘All global manufacturers, whether General Motors, Ford, Chrysler or VW, build historically in the markets in which we sell.’”

Detroit Free Press: “‘We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days,’ GM spokesman Greg Martin said. ‘No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.’”

The Cleveland Leader: “We all know that lying and politics go hand-in-hand, but Mitt Romney is really taking the cake this year with the 2012 presidential election. After being blasted by the auto industry for making false claims at a rally in Defiance, Ohio, last week that Chrysler was going to move jobs from their Jeep plant in Ohio to China, Romney’s campaign decided to solidify the blatant lies in a television ad suggesting the exact same thing. Despite the claims be called outright lies by Chrysler itself, which has invested over $500 million into the Jeep factory in Ohio, Romney’s campaign is not backing down. Instead, they’ve opted to triple down on the assertion that Chrysler is moving Ohio jobs to China in a new radio ad that began running in Ohio on Tuesday.”

: “GM and Chrysler officials ‘feel they’re being dragged into a political campaign in the most dishonest, cynical way,’ Rattner said. ‘To be accused by someone who’s a presidential candidate of exporting jobs is infuriating. Romney crossed the line here. It’s one thing to have a point of view or to shape something to help a position. It’s another thing to just make things up out of whole cloth.’”

Toledo Blade: “‘Jeep is one of our truly global brands with uniquely American roots. This will never change,’ Mr. Marchionne said. ‘So much so that we committed that the iconic Wrangler nameplate, currently produced in our Toledo, Ohio, plant, will never see full production outside the United States.’”

Denver Post: “Beyond the ad’s veracity is a question about character. In a place like Ohio, where 1 in 8 jobs are in the auto industry, such a lie matters. It scares people. It makes them worry that better economic times they are just beginning to see could dissolve before their eyes. It bespeaks an indifference to the concerns of Ohio’s working class, and that is just as revealing as backing an ad that leaves a wholly untruthful impression.”

Reuters: “Chrysler Group LLC Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne reaffirmed on Tuesday that the company is not moving Jeep vehicle production out of the United States to China … Chrysler in an October 25 blog post had already rejected a statement made that day to a crowd in Ohio by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, that Chrysler was thinking of moving all Jeep production from Ohio to China.”

The best quote of all has to be Greg Martin stabbing Romney right in the Bain Cayman with this, “We think creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back in this country should be a source of bipartisan pride.”

The press has finally caught Romney in a lie that can’t be explained away. And why is that? Because this lie impacts corporations.

Such is the respect we give the business community in this country. When workers came forward to tell of how Romney decimated their jobs they were dismissed as sore losers. When women came forward to tell of how Romney tried to force them to give up their child for adoption or not have a life-saving abortion, they are ignored and the press gives Romney a pass on his extremist views on women’s freedom. But when Mitt Romney started lying about corporations, that was too much.

Romney’s lies about Jeep and GM are no less egregious than the lies he tells about his views on women’s freedom and equal pay, healthcare, middle class taxes, Medicare, Social Security, and so much more. No less egregious or ruining of reputations than when he smeared 47% of the country as lazy victims who felt “entitled” to food and shelter. But heck, it was okay when he was smearing those people. If it wasn’t exactly okay, it was up for debate. Were they not paying taxes, who wasn’t paying taxes, why and how much – these were issues.

But when he started smearing corporations and hurting business, well that was enough of that. Mitt Romney can make enemies anywhere at any time. That much is clear. It seems Mitt Romney has just met two corporations that are not people. They are much bigger than people. Even Mitt Romney will not be allowed to lie about big corporations.

GM and Chrysler didn’t deserve to be dragged into Romney’s mud, but then neither did union members, women, the gay community, single mothers, veterans, people on Social Security, Britain, and the rest of the global community he’s taken aim at in despicable acts of stupidity and desperation. It’s one thing to have an ideological position and another to tell egregious, harmful lies about the other in order to get votes and money.

The press just can’t believe Romney would stoop this low. But the littered path of destruction in Romney’s wake of ugly lies reveals that this isn’t a new turn for Romney, but rather the usual way he conducts himself — with no attachment to reality and no remorse about the damage he’s inflicting without just cause.

Mitt’s Math Problem: Romney Must Get 54%-60% of the Vote to Win Iowa, Nevada, and NC

By: Jason Easley October 31st, 2012

The early voting math is creating a problem for Mitt Romney. Obama is piling up such large margins that Romney will have to get 54%-60% of the votes on Election Day in Iowa, Nevada, and North Carolina in order to win each state.

In a conference call with reporters today, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina described the electoral lay of the land as, “We have the math. They have the myth,” and accused the Romney campaign of, “trying to sell illusion and delusion.” The early voting numbers reveal that the Obama campaign piling up big margins in the battleground states that are going to make the Election Day math very difficult for Romney to overcome.

The Romney campaign always had fewer paths to 270 electoral votes, and early voting is making those paths to victory very, very narrow. Democrats already lead in Iowa by 60,000 early votes. Democrats lead by 30,000 early votes in Nevada, and have cast 45% of the ballots, compared to 37% for the Republicans as of October 27. In North Carolina, Democrats lead early voting by 305,000.

The most troubling of the three states for the Romney campaign is Iowa. If the early voting turnout continues to its current pace, by the end of this week 45% of the total ballots in the election may have already been cast. If Obama maintains his lead at that level of turnout, the math becomes virtually impossible for Romney in Iowa on Election Day.

The reality of the Electoral College math is that if Obama wins Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada, plus the states that he is expected to win, the president will be reelected.

The reason why Romney has turned his attention towards Michigan and Pennsylvania is because things are looking bad for him in Ohio. A new CBS News/Quinnipiac poll has Obama with the same 5 point lead in the Buckeye State that he had last week.

The Romney campaign can keep spinning and blustering about their momentum, but behind closed doors his campaign appears to be increasingly realizing that Ohio is not going to go their way. This is why they are dumping millions of dollars in ads into Michigan and Pennsylvania. If Romney can’t replace Ohio’s 18 electoral college votes with another big state, the results in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Colorado will be irrelevant for him.

It is easy to see why Republicans were so desperate to restrict early voting in the swing states. The Obama early voting machine has been getting out the vote and delivering the results. However, all early voting does is put the president in a good position to win. Voters still have to go to the polls on Election Day and support their candidate.

This election is not over by a long shot, but if Obama supporters show up to vote on Election Day, and keep these battleground state tallies close, Obama’s early voting advantage will put the president over the top.

Mitt Romney’s math problem is difficult right now, but it becomes impossible if Obama supporters show up at the polls on in 6 days.

Want a photo-op with Mitt Romney just after Sandy made landfall in New Jersey? Just grab a pre-purchased jar of WalMart peanut butter and hand it to him at his “Victory Rally” “Relief Rally”. Heck, “Just grab something.” It’s not as if it matters what it is, because this is all just a Big Show.

Today we discover that those supplies at the Romney “Relief Rally” were not all random donations but rather buttressed with $5,000 worth of goods purchased by a desperate campaign as props. The campaign planned to photo op Romney accepting food from supporters and loading a truck with food after the event, but what if no food showed up? Buzzfeed is reporting:

But the last-minute nature of the call for donations left some in the campaign concerned that they would end up with an empty truck. So the night before the event, campaign aides went to a local Wal-Mart and spent $5,000 on granola bars, canned food, and diapers to put on display while they waited for donations to come in, according to one staffer. (The campaign confirmed that it “did donate supplies to the relief effort,” but would not specify how much it spent.)

What makes this so outrageous is that the Red Cross did not want the items the Romney campaign collected in the first place. The Red Cross would have been better served with a $5,000 cash donation from the campaign. But that wouldn’t have allowed Romney to pose with canned goods and water as the Caring But Refusing to Answer Questions Republican Who May or May Not Want to Privatize FEMA.

Mitt Romney’s “relief rally” yesterday rang more like a typical campaign rally, except for the oddly similar stacks of food and water he photo-oped himself loading into a truck after the event. It was odd to see, for example, what appeared to be multiple bags of uncooked rice going to people without power, but whatever, right? No one ever claimed Romney or his followers were practical sorts.

The press was not impressed with Romney’s transparent attempts to keep campaigning through a disaster even before they knew it was staged with props, and they called him out on his “Victory Rally” (as their press passes read) repeatedly:

Lots of Qs in the press corps today on how Romney’s OH “storm relief event” is diff from a “campaign event.” Same venue, same celeb guests.

— Ari Shapiro (@Ari_Shapiro) October 30, 2012

Romney’s event it in Kettering Ohio:This photo says it all — “Obama: You’re Fired an here’s some canned goods” twitter.com/jonkarl/status…

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) October 30, 2012

They also called him out on his failure to answer questions about his position on FEMA. The campaign explained that the Victory Rally badges were printed up the day before, but what kind of campaign doesn’t reprint them for the optics alone?

Given Romney’s stance that we should privatize FEMA and turn it over to the private sector, his own failure to do anything other than use the storm as a prop is not only indicative of his craven character, but also kills the entire premise of his privatization cries. Republicans like to tell us that the private sector will step up. Will they, then? Would you imagine that a multi-millionaire with money stashed all over the world might step up? Or do you think that multi-millionaire might only care about how he appeared to the Victims whose votes he needs?

This is what Romney meant when he said all campaign events would be canceled. Because, see, this wasn’t a campaign event per se. It was a photo op: Mitt Romney as Purchaser of Prop Canned Goods that the Red Cross Doesn’t Need.

Meanwhile, as Romney posed with canned goods pre-purchased by his campaign and pretended he wasn’t the desperate liar who was also smearing Chrysler and GM, Republican Governor Chris Christie was making the rounds on TV to discuss the serious damage done to his state by Sandy. Christie also made the point over and over again that President Obama had been “wonderful” and had cut through red tape to make things happen.

Republicans, never able to keep their pettiness to themselves even during national crises, took to the airwaves to express dismay that Obama had been too competent and too prepared. Bush’s former FEMA director during Katrina accused the President of addressing Sandy “too early”, as opposed to waiting say five days while Americans starved in pools of their own urine or drowned waiting for FEMA.

“Just grab something!” Anything. Anything at all will do. It’s not like real people need real food. It’s just a photo op with stage props.

This should surprise no one after Paul Ryan’s blatant abuse of a soup kitchen where he posed without permission from the folks in charge with dishes real Americans had already cleaned. Ironically, Ryan left the soup kitchen in worse shape, as people were outraged by the politicization and blamed the soup kitchen for Ryan’s abuse. Photo-oped compassion. What’s next? Will they start photo-shopping themselves at hurricane relief centers with their tidy, neatly pressed rolled up sleeves and wooden smiles?